The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini and other Strange Stories (22 page)

We spent longer than we thought we would at the Victoria and Albert. I was entranced by the ceramics and the furniture. It had not really occurred to me before that household objects could be things of beauty, and at one point my mother remarked sourly that I would grow up to be like Uncle Alfred if I wasn’t careful. It was past three o’clock before my mother persuaded me that we must move on, but I insisted that we should have one last look at the medieval ivories. I was fascinated by these minute depictions of religious scenes, their breathless, harsh intensity, combined with a kind of purity.

We were so intent on a crucifixion triptych, my mother explaining, I looking, that we were very startled when a voice behind us said: ‘Good afternoon!’ We turned round to find Uncle Alfred in immaculate Prince of Wales check, leaning on a malacca walking stick and observing us.

‘I do apologise,’ he said. ‘Did I startle you?’

‘Not at all,’ said my mother. ‘What an unexpected pleasure!’ This was a little overdone, but my mother never liked to show herself at a loss. Aplomb was a vital part of her armoury as a teacher.

‘You like the ivories?’ Alfred asked me. I nodded.

‘We were just leaving,’ said my mother.

‘Splendid! In that case you must come and have tea with me. It’s not far. We’ll take a taxi.’ He turned to me. ‘Would you like to go in a taxi?’ I looked at my mother. She was about to protest, but Alfred stopped her. ‘I insist. In fact I would take it very much amiss if you refuse. Young George here obviously has a taste for beauty. He must see some of my things. It would be very instructive for him.’ It was a close call, but this last appeal to education just about tipped the balance in his favour, and my mother gave in. I was delighted but chiefly because of the taxi ride: my mother never wasted money on taxis.

In the taxi on the way to Glebe Place Uncle Alfred showed himself to be a man of formidable charm. I wouldn’t say that by the end of the journey my mother had been won over, but the edge of her hostility had been blunted. He made no attempt to flatter her directly, knowing that this would be greeted with suspicion. Instead he devoted all his energies to bringing me out of my shell, listening to my opinions, and then developing them in such a way that they sounded wise and mature. It was a brilliant performance, like a man playing tennis on both sides of the net: lobbing over an easy ball, then rushing to the other side to help his opponent play a devastating return. I think my mother was even more beguiled by him than I was.

The house in Glebe Place was, of course, exquisite. The walls, painted in rich dark colours, were covered with pictures, many with a theatrical flavour. There were framed playbills, costume and stage designs, and old coloured prints of actors in extravagant poses, bedecked with tinsel. On shelves and mantels, china harlequins leapt, columbines smirked and pantaloons stooped. It was a visual feast, especially for a child, but I do not think it is merely hindsight that makes me remember the overall effect as somehow oppressive. Those capering clowns and attitudinising tragedians in pottery, print and bronze all seemed to be clamouring for one’s attention. It was like walking through a silent, gesticulating crowd.

Uncle Alfred’s housekeeper appeared, a thin hollow-eyed woman called Mrs Piercey. Without explaining our presence Alfred ordered tea for us all. Mrs Piercey did not express surprise, or any other emotion; she simply disappeared and re-emerged ten minutes later with tea, cake, biscuits and a plate of thin slices of bread and butter. By this time we were settled in the drawing room whose elegant sash windows looked out on Glebe Place. Like the other rooms we had been shown it was crammed with curious and beautiful things.

Mrs Piercey, refusing any assistance from my mother, dispensed tea and cakes in silence while Uncle Arthur, who seemed barely to notice her, expatiated on Leon Bakst’s costume designs, Callot’s Commedia etchings and the sombre, theatrical James Pryde that hung above the fireplace. After she had gone he seemed to relax a little. He asked about my academic progress, a subject my mother was always delighted to discuss. Her report was glowing, if a little exaggerated. Uncle Alfred rubbed his hands

‘Excellent!’ he said. ‘Obviously Master George has inherited the Vilier brains.’ My mother gave a tight little smile: it was Alfred’s first mistake. He tried to correct himself by adding light-heartedly: ‘And yours too,
naturellement
!’ He gave a little bow, to which mother gave a curt nod of acknowledgement. There was a short teacup-tinkling pause. Uncle Alfred cleared his throat.

‘If I may once more broach a delicate subject. The Boulle clock . . .’ He saw my mother stiffen. ‘I realise I may have expressed myself poorly in my letters, but I wonder if you have reconsidered my offer with regard to having the clock repaired. I really can’t see how you can possibly object—’

‘Alfred,’ cut in my mother. ‘You have been really most kind. The tea was delicious and it was so nice of you to show George all your interesting things. Let’s leave it at that, shall we? We don’t want to spoil our nice afternoon.’

Uncle Alfred held up his hands to acknowledge defeat and as he did so I saw him give my mother a look of such concentrated loathing and contempt that I dropped my slice of seed cake in astonishment. My mother did not notice his look: her powers of observation, though often acute, were extremely selective in their objects. Not long after this we took our leave. At the door, as he was seeing us off, he suddenly asked when my birthday was. My mother, who tended to answer for me whenever possible, told him that it was on November the 15th. November was three months away, so we thought nothing of it; in fact, by unspoken mutual consent, the subject of Uncle Alfred was not discussed by us on the way back to Oxford.

**

That November my birthday fell on a Saturday so, though I was at school, I had some leisure to enjoy it at home. A large parcel came by post for me in the morning, but my mother insisted that I should not open it until I came back from school at midday. All through lessons that morning my mind was devoured by curiosity over the package.

One learns fairly early in life that expectations are nearly always disappointed, but this was one of those rare exceptions to the rule. My mother made me wait for the parcel till I had finished lunch, by which time I was in a frenzy of anticipation and indigestion. I tore open the brown paper wrapping to reveal a stout cardboard box on which reposed a little white envelope. In the envelope was one of Uncle Alfred’s engraved visiting cards on which the words ‘Happy Birthday’ had been written in violet ink.

When I opened the box I found it neatly packed with various items in tissue paper on top of which lay a booklet. On the booklet was printed the words: ‘Benjamin Pollock Limited, Instructions for Assembly’. It was a kit for a toy theatre. Packed into the box was the stage base with a tiny trap door in it. Then there were strips and struts of wood, little packets of screws, and some sheets of cardboard printed in bright colours. Among these was a long narrow strip showing an orchestra pit and the top halves of a Victorian orchestra in evening dress. There was a pillared and pedimented proscenium frontage with side boxes inset in which men and women were represented as watching a play. There were various swags of gold-fringed scarlet curtain in cardboard, and there was a drop curtain also in cardboard on which in gold had been inscribed the words ROYAL COBURG THEATRE. Everything was in pristine condition, but I had the feeling that it was nevertheless about thirty or forty years old. This for me added to the fascination and beauty of the thing. It filled me with wild delight. Mother was less enthusiastic, but she made me sit down at once and write a letter of thanks to Uncle Alfred.

Over the next days and weeks I devoted every spare moment to the construction of my toy theatre which, when completed, stood two foot wide by eighteen inches high, the stage going back to a depth of nearly three feet. This was fairly standard for the so-called ‘large format’ toy theatres, but there were one or two oddities about Uncle Alfred’s present. In the first place, though I had received the theatre complete in every detail, I had no scenery or characters to go with it. There was only a frame at the back of the stage which accommodated various back cloths made of coloured tissue paper through which a light could be shone. This, I discovered later, was a feature that was generally found only in the Spanish toy theatres of Seix and Barral, but the frontage was pure English with its gaudy decoration and the charming touch of naivety about the drawing.

There were other peculiarities in the design of the stage front which only became apparent on close examination. For example if you looked at the musicians in the ‘orchestra strip’ you began to notice that several of them had faces which were only half human. One of them had a snout like a pig, another resembled a cat, another a monkey. The conductor, seen only from the back, was so hunched over his podium that he looked deformed. Long strands of black hair snaked over his collar. One of his abnormally long arms was lifted high in the air with the baton in his hand pointing downwards, almost as if he were about to stab someone with it. In the four stage boxes, two on either side of the proscenium, the figures wore Regency dress and stared rigidly in profile at the action on the stage with the exception of the couple in the bottom right hand box. Here a man and a woman were facing outwards, the man with his hands on the woman’s shoulders quite close to her neck. The figures were not very subtly drawn but I had the impression when I looked at them sometimes that he was about to strangle her. Then, when I would look at them again, I saw nothing of the kind and wondered how I could have been so fanciful.

These oddities did not disturb me at all; in fact they captivated me. I loved my theatre and spent long hours staring at it. I peopled its bare stage with my imagination. I had it set up beside my bed and, going to sleep with it in my sight, would often dream about it. In my dreams I heard the murmur of the audience and could see shadowy figures moving around the stage, but I never had a clear idea of what they were doing. Once or twice my dreams took an unexpected turn. In them the clamour of the audience would get louder and louder until a piercing scream of agony would bring it to an end. The sound was so vivid and precise that I would wake up with the scream still ringing in my ears. A faint internal echo of the noise would reverberate inside my head for several minutes before fading. When I awoke I did not feel fear, as one normally understands the term, because fear contains expectation. It was much more like the feeling that one has having just been through a fearful experience: emptiness, mental exhaustion, and a morbid sensitivity to the slightest sound or sensation. In those moments the rustle of my sheets was like the crash of storm-tossed waves.

I told nobody about these occasions because I knew that my mother would immediately say that my toy theatre was having a bad effect and would take it away from me. I would suffer anything not to be separated from my passion.

Christmas brought me a further parcel from Uncle Alfred, and an excitement almost equal to the first. Inside the cardboard box were sheets to be cut out on which were printed scenery, characters, and some properties such as tables and chairs. In addition there was a set of operating wires to draw the characters on or off stage and a booklet containing the text of the play for which the scenery and characters had been designed. It was called
The Boy in Green Velvet
and the title page stated that it had been written by someone called Valerie Fridl, an improbable name.

Toy theatres are not quite like puppet theatres in that a character can be moved across the stage, but must remain throughout the scene in the same pose. The same character will be represented in different poses and costumes for different scenes in the play. Thus there was a different cut out figure of Conrad, the eponymous boy, for Act I, Act II and Act III, Scene 1 in various costumes and attitudes. The style of the sheets did not coincide exactly with that of the frontage. The figures had none of that crude histrionic raffishness you find in British prints. They were well-drawn lithographs with rich colours, very much in the mid nineteenth-century German Romantic style.

As I write, I hesitate, even though nearly forty years have passed since the events I am writing about. I find myself skirting round the periphery, describing sets and costumes in general terms and not coming to the play itself. My reluctance to do so even now has a measure of dread about it.

The Boy in Green Velvet
began in what was described as the ‘Oak Chamber Scene’, a dark panelled room with no windows, Jacobean in feel. There were three characters involved, the boy Conrad, a priest called Father Silas, and a curious dwarfish creature called Zamiel. The script of the play began very dully with a dialogue between Conrad and Father Silas in which the priest gave the boy all kinds of moral advice and the boy replied in monosyllables. In a clumsy piece of play construction Father Silas abruptly leaves and is immediately replaced by Zamiel. The conversation between Zamiel and Conrad was more interesting but more baffling. It consisted mainly of a series of questions by Zamiel to which Conrad gave bewildered replies. I can only remember a small sample which went like this:

ZAMIEL: Where are you?

CONRAD: I am here. This is my home.

ZAMIEL: But you have no power in it. Where would you go?

CONRAD: I do not know.

ZAMIEL: Is it mastery that you desire?

CONRAD: Why? Can you give it to me?

ZAMIEL: I can show you. What do you wish to find?

CONRAD: How to be the master.

ZAMIEL: Where do you wish to find this mastery you desire?

CONRAD: Wherever it is.

ZAMIEL: Will you let me take you to it?

CONRAD: If it must be.

ZAMIEL: If you and I are alone, how can it be otherwise?

I have still no idea precisely what this means, but I know that the conversation between the two had a direction and purpose however obscure: Zamiel was persuading Conrad to go with him to some place. I realised even at the time that Zamiel was making Conrad believe that he himself wanted what Zamiel wanted him to want. The subtlety appealed to me, and my very meagre theatrical experience did not tell me that this was a very odd sort of play. The only playwright to which my mother had introduced me was Shakespeare, and he seemed quite as strange as Valerie Fridl.